City Tells Parents It Understands As School Bus Crisis Eases a Bit

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ELISSA GOOTMAN

Published: February 2, 2007

A deputy mayor and a deputy schools chancellor called a news conference yesterday to reassure parents that they were working hard to solve problems caused by changes to the city's school bus routes this week. At the same time, they said they were sorry for any inconvenience or confusion.

Their solicitous tone contrasted with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's staunch defense of the bus changes on Wednesday. ''I do want to say I regret any inconvenience,'' Kathleen Grimm, the deputy chancellor for finance, said. ''This was a very big change, and change is not easy.''

Mr. Bloomberg was traveling in Israel yesterday, and Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, who had apologized repeatedly to parents earlier in the week, did not attend the news conference. Instead, Deputy Mayor Dennis M. Walcott joined Ms. Grimm at the Department of Education headquarters to say the situation was coming under control.

''I just want all parents to know that we are getting reports today that things are improved,'' Ms. Grimm said. ''However, we still have some work to do.''

While the officials continued to defend the midyear cutbacks to the city's yellow school bus routes, which they said would save up to $12 million a year, they also acknowledged that because of glitches, the city had done things like assign siblings who attend the same school to different types of transportation.

The bus changes, which went into effect on Monday, have drawn more than 20,000 calls to a hot line from parents facing problems getting their children to school. Some rebelled and put students on buses even after being told they were not eligible for service. Others complained of kindergartners being given MetroCards and told to take public transportation.

Yet even as some bus stops were restored, parents and politicians across the city continued to fume.

City Councilman Robert Jackson, the chairman of the Council Education Committee, said he would hold hearings. And the public advocate, Betsy Gotbaum, called on education officials to fire Alvarez & Marsal, the consulting group that had proposed the bus route consolidations.

''We're still getting calls from parents who are absolutely furious, parents who just don't understand why all these things happened,'' Ms. Gotbaum said.

Some parents and officials turned their attention to the city's patchwork of rules that determine which children are eligible for yellow bus service, based on their age, how far they live from school and how far from a school bus stop.

Education officials say the rules have existed for decades, but State Senator Carl Kruger, a Brooklyn Democrat, accused the Education Department yesterday of wrongly denying bus service to thousands of children based on a rule requiring them to live within a quarter-mile of a school bus stop.

He said the rule was not printed anywhere and accused the department of making it up.

''It's a Catch-22,'' Mr. Kruger said in a statement. ''They're saying you can't take the bus because it's too far from your home. But the only reason the bus is too far from your home is that the city took the route away.''

The changes in bus routes were put in place to save money. Officials, acting on the consultants' advice, said that the city was paying for buses that were underused and that routes could be consolidated, saving millions. Accordingly, the city eliminated 116 routes.

But judging from this week's outcry, it appeared that the city was denying bus service to students who had previously received it.

Like Mr. Kruger, City Councilman Bill de Blasio, also a Brooklyn Democrat, said his office was flooded with calls. Mr. de Blasio praised the department for reinstating a school bus stop on 10th Avenue in Windsor Terrace that had been eliminated, even though the bus continued to drive right past it. ''The elimination of the Windsor Terrace stop was foolish,'' he said.

But hardly all such problems were resolved. Laura Free of Windsor Terrace said she had chosen to send her daughter, Frances Lach, 6, to Public School 230 in nearby Kensington only after ensuring that Frances could take a yellow bus to a separate after-school program.

Under the changes, Ms. Free said she was told that Frances could take the bus to and from home -- but not to the after-school program. She said that after-school care was very important to working families and single parents. ''It has a real impact,'' she said.

At yesterday's news conference, Ms. Grimm said she could not say how many stops might be restored. She urged parents to call 311 or an information hot line (718) 482-3700 with any remaining concerns. Yesterday, there were 2,356 calls to the hot line as of 4:30 p.m., down from 13,089 on Monday.

Mr. Walcott said that officials were committed to resolving cases where children need bus service but were denied it. He deflected a question about whether parents had received sufficient notice of the midwinter changes, saying: ''We are addressing the issues moving forward. What's happened has happened. We have heard parents very clearly as far as their anger and their concern about their children, and we are also concerned to make sure that their children have appropriate buses to get to school.''